Love Letters
by UA
Summary: Part One...The key she needed to unlock the mystery of who Diana and Brian O'Leary really were, and why she, Kristina O'Leary, never really existed. UPDATED 1/7/03
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Passions. They belong to JER and NBC. Kristina, Brad, and any other characters you do not recognize are my own creations.  
  
This is an idea that wouldn't let me go until I put it down on paper. Enjoy, lol.  
  
  
  
  
  
Love Letters  
  
  
  
  
  
Part One  
  
Chapter 1  
  
It was a hot day.  
  
Wet and humid.  
  
The windows of the beat-up old car were cracked. The air conditioner broken.  
  
The moist air enveloped her, it's long arms wrapping around her body in an unwelcome embrace.  
  
The car bumped and jostled along the winding, dusty road.  
  
Trees passed in a green blur.  
  
She rest her cheek against the headrest. Tired.  
  
Already so tired.  
  
It was just past ten on a Saturday morning. She shouldn't be this tired. And she wouldn't be. If it weren't for the thought of what lay ahead.  
  
She was going home.  
  
Revisiting her youth, she thought with a sardonic smile.  
  
Long fingers twined through hers, and the smile became genuine at the sound of his deep voice.  
  
"What are you smiling about?"  
  
"Oh.nothing," she answered coyly.  
  
A smile, equal parts amusement, equal parts frustration, lit upon his full lips, and his faded blue eyes twinkled at her. "And I thought your mother was the mysterious one," he teased.  
  
Her lips curled into a thoughtful, sad smile, and she shook her head at him. "It's so hot," she said. To no one in particular as she rolled the window all the way down. Closing her eyes with a sigh at the sensation of the warm air caressing her face. A little better. But not much.  
  
"I got the first shower," he told her.  
  
She rolled her brown eyes. "We'll see about that," she muttered. "Anyway.it's MY house. I have say on who gets the first shower."  
  
Turn left here.  
  
The old Chase house on the right. Abandoned, it looked like, years and years ago. Probably not long after she and Mom left.  
  
She wondered what had become of them. The Chases. Rachel was around her age. Maybe a bit younger.  
  
"How much longer?" he asked. Hands gripping the steering wheel lightly as he chanced a glance her way. "God, Kristina." he mumbled. "What were you trying to escape from?" he asked as the car crawled deeper and deeper into the unknown.  
  
Only a mile further. A mile. Maybe two. As close to civilization as her father dared live.  
  
What WERE they trying to escape from?  
  
She still didn't know, she thought bitterly.  
  
"Are you sure we didn't take a wrong turn?" he questioned. "This looks more like some kind of wilderness reserve."  
  
"Brad," she snapped impatiently. "I lived here most of my childhood. I was almost fourteen when Dad."  
  
"Okay. Okay," he lay a soothing hand on her arm. "I'm sorry. Don't get."  
  
"Brad," she shrugged his hand off.  
  
"Kristina. I said I was sorry. Don't tell me you're going to."  
  
"No, Brad," she shoved an impatient hand through her disheveled blond hair. "We're here. Home," the whisper died on her lips as she fumbled with the door for a few seconds, and slowly climbed out.  
  
The overgrown stalks of grass tickled her bare thighs as she waded through the pale green sea, and she winced as she felt the tiny scrape of briars.  
  
"Kristina," Brad's voice came from behind her. "I don't think you should.that place looks like it's going to collapse into itself."  
  
The slight breeze caught her blond hair, making it flutter about her lovely face, and she turned glistening brown eyes on him. "Fine. You can spend the night in the car."  
  
There was no fighting her once she set her heart or her mind on something, he realized.  
  
And spending the entire night outside in the car did NOT sound appealing. At all.  
  
The front steps creaked under her weight, and she stopped herself from grabbing onto the column for support.  
  
Vines and vines of roses curled around the whitewashed columns on either side of her. Their sweet scent hanging heavily in the humid air. Bumblebees buzzed, flitting past her on their little wings.  
  
He watched the smile blossom on her lips, watched her get lost in some great memory. "Kristina?"  
  
Her fingers were warm against his as she took his hand. "Just remembering," she smiled. "My mother loved roses," she murmured.  
  
The key turned in the lock easily, and the door opened with an annoyed groan.  
  
Sunlight streamed in through bare windows, and his eyes picked out tiny particles of dust floating in the air, his nose wrinkling as his eyes watered.  
  
White, ghostly sheets draped over musty furniture, and the room echoed with the sound of their careful footsteps.  
  
Voices. Memories. She closed her eyes as she twirled slowly around, arms open.  
  
The house was welcoming her home.  
  
"Kristina."  
  
There it was again. That note of concern in Brad's voice. The same note that had been there since Mom.  
  
Affection and irritation warred for the upper hand, and in the end, the feelings of love she felt the man in front of her won out. "I'm fine, Brad. Really."  
  
The relieved smile on his face only lasted a moment. "Kristina.where are you going?" he called after her, as she disappeared up the long, dangerous looking stairs leading to the second floor.  
  
He wasn't clingy or obsessive or anything like that. Really. When a guy was fortunate enough to be blessed with a Kristina O'Leary in his life, he didn't take anything for granted.  
  
She was perched on the edge of the bed. Pillow clutched to her chest, and shoulders shaking ever so slightly, until his arm went around them, and she leaned into him gratefully.  
  
His blue eyes wandered over the walls. The nondescript wallpaper was peeling, stained in many places, but that wasn't what grabbed his interest.  
  
It was the pictures.  
  
Dozens and dozens of pictures. Clipped from magazines, newspapers, some actual photographs. Others posters. Tacked onto the walls.  
  
The Eiffel Tower towering high, lit up against the Parisian sky. Santa Fe and its richness of color. The Bermuda coastline.  
  
And another photo.  
  
This one looked to be a small New England coastal town. Fairly common scene.  
  
He wondered about its significance.  
  
Pretty pictures he guessed spoke of Kristina's past. Or rather Kristina's parents' past. By her own admission, she'd led a fairly solitary life. Just her. Her mother. And her father.  
  
The lacy white curtains flapped gently as she heaved the window pane open, and he came to stand behind her. Staring down at the overgrown grounds below.  
  
They must have been very beautiful then.  
  
Breath-taking.  
  
Would the memories play a hand in their future?  
  
In three days' time, he'd have an answer.  
  
"What do you think?" he murmured as his lips brushed ever so gently against her ear, and she shivered at his closeness.  
  
Kristina wrapped his arms tighter around her waist and sighed.  
  
This place was hers now. All hers. All that was left of her past. Her last tie to her parents.  
  
She closed her brown eyes against the sudden onslaught of emotions that threatened to make her lose her breath, the loneliness of being alone. "Brad," she stammered as she blinked back the sting of tears. "Could you."  
  
"Sure," he smiled as he smoothed a hand over her tangled blond tresses and placed a careful kiss on her forehead.  
  
She waved at him as he disappeared around the corner of the door, and the creaking of the ancient steps tracked his progress as he headed downstairs to claim their overnight bags.  
  
The photographs, the memories called her name as she sank back against the worn old mattress with its little girl bedspread and faded pink pillows, and she could almost hear the lilting sound of her mother's voice as she wove magical tales about the pictures on the wall with a wistful smile upon her face and heartbreak in her blue eyes.  
  
She didn't want this. She didn't want this weariness that came with remembering. She didn't want the ache that reminded her of their tumultuous twenty-year relationship, with its impossible highs. Highs when she clung to her mother and all she was to her-everything and nothing. And painful lows when she damned her mother's very existence for the hurt her father suffered at her hands.  
  
She didn't want the memories of how he pined for what should have been his all the days of his life  
  
She didn't want this.  
  
But she couldn't walk away.  
  
She just knew.  
  
This house, with all its whispered secrets and haunting memories, held the key.  
  
The key she needed to move on.  
  
The key she needed to unlock the mystery of who Diana and Brian O'Leary really were, and why she, Kristina O'Leary, never really existed. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
  
  
  
  
"Kristina, are you out of your mind?" Brad's voice sounded shrill to her ears.  
  
She clasped his hand more tightly with her own, urging him forward, and trying at the same time not laugh.  
  
"I know what you're thinking." Brad managed to speak between clenched teeth, stepping carefully and forcing himself not to look down.  
  
"Really?"  
  
He didn't have to see her face to know.Kristina was practicing her perfected eye roll at this precise moment. "Yes, really," he hissed, as his foot slipped, and he struggled to regain purchase. "You're thinking 'my boyfriend is a wuss.terrified of heights.' You're right, of course," he spoke quickly, his feet hurrying to keep pace with her more confident footing. "Except I choose to think of myself as an intelligent man equipped with common sense and the fear of God. You're the one who's nuts, Kristina. Don't tell me your mom actually LET you do this regularly."  
  
A smile worked on Kristina's lips as she tugged on his hand, steering him to a spot where the roof's slope was more gradual.  
  
And the view was amazing.  
  
"Kristina.oh my God." Brad stammered. Forgetting for the moment his earlier misgivings as his blue eyes followed the line of the trees, the horizon where the sky and the sparkling water seemed one and the same. "This is."  
  
".beautiful," she finished for him. Releasing his hand and clasping her hands across her knees as she took a seat.  
  
Brad joined her a second later, studying her intently out of the corner of his eyes.  
  
Kristina lifted her face, allowing the sun to kiss it, smiling as she murmured, "Mom and I fought over this all the time. I was a bit reckless."  
  
Brad smiled knowingly despite himself.  
  
Kristina WAS a daredevil, willing to take risks, choosing her OWN path and sticking to it no matter how trying.  
  
"What are you smiling about?" she teased. "As I was saying." she continued, "I think she thought.I don't know what she thought," she sighed. "We disagreed on almost EVERYTHING. Daydreaming on the roof was the least of it," her voice softened in memory. "But sometimes.sometimes I'd find her out here. Alone. Gazing up at the stars on nights where they twinkled and sparkled like diamonds. I'd watch her for the few seconds it took for her to realize I was there, in the shadows. Tears sparkled like silver against her cheeks, her lips moved noiselessly wishing on every star.she looked so sad I wanted to hug her until the hurt stopped. But the minute.the exact minute she knew I was watching her, the mask would go back on, and she'd offer me a shaky smile, holding her arm out to me. We'd hold each other in silence, and I'd listen to her heart beat, and we just WERE.you know," her voice wavered just a bit as she looked to him with shiny brown eyes. "Those times.I felt so close to her, but still so far away. Then Dad would call out. He always seemed a little worried we'd disappear or something.Dad would call out, and she'd kiss my forehead, give my hand a squeeze, and she'd be gone. And every time.I was left wondering if it were real or just my imagination. Was it real, Brad? Did I KNOW? Did I feel close to her, like a child should? Or was it just another dream?"  
  
"I think reality is just dreams realized. The dreams are not always the good kind. Some of them are more like nightmares. But yeah," he told her as his finger hooked around a flyaway strand of golden hair and tucked it behind her ear. "I think it was always real, Kristina. You just didn't want to see it because of the way you felt about her and your father's relationship."  
  
Kristina shook her head at him with a crooked grin. "You had me for a while, Buddy, but you lost me at the end. SHE was the one that pushed ME away. Not the other way around. I gave her every opportunity. EVERY opportunity, and she failed. Time and time again."  
  
"Where are you going?" Brad questioned as she stood up slowly, dusting the seat of her denim shorts off, and walking in a direction opposite to the one they had originally came.  
  
"If I were perfectly honest, Brad," her voice had a teasing quality to it as she sidestepped his question. "Your whole explanation was bogus. Where'd you come up with that mumbo-jumbo?"  
  
"Kristina!" his voice rose in panic as his blue eyes shifted to the overgrowth several feet below.  
  
Laughter bubbled from Kristina's lips at his expression as she shimmied down a rail and planted her feet solidly on firm ground.  
  
"What is this?" he grumbled as he landed in an undignified heap at her feet.  
  
"Mom's balcony," she told him matter-of-factly as she offered him a hand.  
  
"You're telling me we could have skipped over most of the nail-biting experience, given my ulcer the afternoon off, and climbed up THERE," he pointed to their original perch. "From here?"  
  
"I told you my mom didn't exactly approve so would it make sense that I'd climb up there from HER balcony? Only if I wanted to get caught. Brad.part of the fun was in the sneaky appeal. The adventure of it all. Geez.I was more man than you at ten-years-old," she muttered, flinging the double French doors leading to her mother's bedroom open and stepping inside.  
  
The room was as they'd left it years and years ago.  
  
The down of the comforter had yellowed with age.  
  
Her broken reflection resembled something that might be seen in a carnival funhouse, and she winced as the jagged edge of the mirror nicked her fingertip. She sucked lightly on the wound, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth, as she lowered herself to the vanity chair, mesmerized with the image before her.  
  
Brad picked up a slim volume of poetry hidden behind the bedframe, blowing the dust from its covers before opening it carefully. A perfect red rose lay tucked within its pages. A single touch of his fingers, and the brittle softness faded to a fine dust. He kept the book in his hands, thinking perhaps it might hold some sentimental value for Kristina regardless of her insistence that her mother and she were never close. He continued to move about the room in silence, his blue eyes taking in everything and nothing. No matter how hard his imagination worked, he couldn't see the room as it had been, but Kristina.  
  
Brown eyes stared back at her. Curious. Reflective. They widened as her own fingers traced the planes and contours of her face. Her mother's face.  
  
Brad watched her, his body backlit by the sun streaming in through the open French doors. His shadow looming across the worn wood of the floor.  
  
Her mother's face. Her eyes, she thought as her hands dropped to her sides. The jewelry box opened easily under the slight pressure from her fingers, and some pretty little tune she couldn't remember the name of tinkled forth. A lump of hurt lodged in her throat as she withdrew the compact from the box's depths. A present to her mother. From her. And her father. Forgotten. Laid aside.  
  
The compact was beautiful. Ornate and extragavant. She'd imagined how pleased her mother would be with such a thoughtfully picked, pretty present all the way home from the secret shopping trip she and Dad had taken. She was sure her mother's eyes would light up in appreciation, and she'd give her the biggest hug and whisper "I love you" to them both, she remembered as the compact opened.  
  
Brad heard her tiny gasp of breath when she opened the compact, but he didn't move to comfort her. He knew she was lost in a memory again and thought it best SHE deal with her past.  
  
Brown eyes somehow turned to blue, and it really was her mother's face staring back at her, a too bright smile on her lips as she snapped the compact shut and whirled around in her seat. A thank you on her lips.  
  
The bedroom was lit in shadows and dancing lights, and her dad never looked more handsome than he did as he gazed back at her mother-her, by some twist of memory and trickery-with such love in his eyes.  
  
She recognized herself through her mother's eyes. Tucked against her father lovingly, watching her with such wondrous expectation in her brown eyes.  
  
She spoke, her voice soft yet excited, "Do you like it, Mom? It was the prettiest one in the entire store. Just like you're the prettiest Mom."  
  
She felt tears stinging her eyes as she raised one hand to her throat, the other safe-guarding the present given with such love. "It's beautiful. Thank you," she murmured. Beckoning her forward. Into her arms.  
  
"Now you can throw your old one away and use this one. It's much better, isn't it, Dad?" her fingers reached blindly for her father's hand.  
  
"If that's what you want," her father's voice rumbled. Deep in his chest.  
  
Her heart ached with the old hurt as she viewed herself through her mother's eyes, her hands unable to stop themselves from reaching for the plain silver compact.  
  
Her father wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a calming manner, and her voice sounded shrill and high to her ears. "You don't like it. You don't like our present. You still like that ugly thing better."  
  
"Kristina."  
  
"No. No! She doesn't like it, Dad. She never likes anything I give her. Anything I do. I hate her. I hate her!" she screamed, shoving his hands away and running out of the room.  
  
The hands holding the compact trembled, and the blue tear-filled, hurting eyes staring back at Kristina slowly turned into brown again.  
  
"Kristina," Brad's quiet voice startled her.  
  
She wiped carelessly at the tears slipping down her cheeks, squared her shoulders, and cleared her throat before speaking in a strong voice, "I'm okay, Brad. I'm fine," she assured him with a pat of his cheek. "A little bit hungry, but okay. It's your job to feed me. Being the boyfriend and all."  
  
Brad's lips quirked upward into a relieved smile. "I think I saw a couple of places back in town."  
  
"Great," she beamed at him. "Just let me fix my face and make myself presentable, and we're out of here."  
  
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"  
  
The salt of her tears lingered on her lips as they caressed his. "I'll be fine. Nothing but memories, and memories can't hurt you."  
  
I don't know about that, Brad thought as he glanced at her once more before walking out of the bedroom. "Don't be long."  
  
"I won't," Kristina promised as she tucked the compact away in her shorts pocket.  
  
Her broken image looked back at her knowingly as she rubbed the remainder of her tears away with her fists, her brown eyes hiding nothing.  
  
The eyes don't lie, she thought as she scooted down the stairs after Brad.  
  
Mom's never had. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
  
  
"How can you eat that? That cheeseburger is 98 % fat and grease, 2% nutrition, Kristina. And you put enough salt on those fries."  
  
"Brad," Kristina rolled her brown eyes. "Unlike you," she looked pointedly at his half-eaten salad, "I ENJOY my food. I actually LIKE to eat."  
  
"I'm not going to argue with you on that point," Brad chuckled. "I just can't figure out where you put it, that's all." He pushed her plate aside to join his.  
  
"The one thing my mother gave me that was a blessing instead of a curse," Kristina tried to joke.  
  
"Kristina," Brad sighed, reaching across the table and grasping both of her hands in one of his own. "Your mother loved you. She.I'm sure she didn't mean."  
  
Kristina pulled her hands away, refusing to meet Brad's eyes. "Brad, I don't want to talk about her."  
  
"That's kind of impossible, seeing as she's the reason we're here. Kristina," his voice dropped to a gentle plea. "Being back in this.place," Brad said slowly as he glanced at the almost deserted street outside, "it has to bring back memories. Memories I'm sure hurt. Talking about them can only help, and."  
  
"Brad," Kristina cut him off tersely. "You know I don't appreciate the pop psychology spiel. The memories aren't going to go away, but I'll deal. Why don't you order some food for tonight? We have a lot of work to do, and I don't think I'm going to be the only one making a pig out of myself," she smirked, leaning across the table to press a kiss against his cheek. "Meet you outside."  
  
Brad watched her stroll out the diner's front doors and waited for the bells to stop tinkling before picking up a menu and walking to the front counter.  
  
Her reflection in the diner's mirrored windows had always fascinated Kristina as a child, and when she raised a slender hand to trace the boldly painted letters with her fingertips, she was shocked to see the face of the child she used to be staring back at her with the hint of a smile on her full pink lips.  
  
"Kristina," Rachel chided boredly behind her, twisting one long brown pigtail around her index finger as she held her melting strawberry ice cream cone in her other hand. "Those people inside the diner can see you, you know. They can see all of us, but we can't see them, and they'll probably thinking 'that Kristina O'Leary's a real looney. Always walking around with that weird little smile on her face.' I'm telling you, Kristina. Sometimes even **I** think you're a little weird. Just like your mom."  
  
Anger and hurt blazed in Kristina's deep brown eyes as she whirled around to face the smaller girl perched on the sidewalk's edge with her ankles crossed and practically sticking out into the street. "Take it back, Rachel," Kristina warned, towering over Rachel.  
  
Rachel gave the ice cream dripping down her wrist an absent lick as she pulled her legs up beneath her, tucking her knees beneath her chin. "Which part?" she asked, unconcerned with her friend's show of anger. "The part where you're like your mom or the part where I said your mom is weird? She IS weird, Kristina. It's not like everybody doesn't know it already. She not like all the other moms. She never comes around, and she's always sad. Why is she so unhappy? Did you do something really, really bad?"  
  
"If you don't want to be my friend, Rachel," Kristina muttered as she wiped carelessly at the tears she felt forming in the corner of her eyes, "why don't you just say so?"  
  
Rachel rolled her green eyes as she rose to her feet, dusting off the seat of her denim shorts and pulling the edge of her tie-dyed bikini top down where it rode up on her sweat-slicked back. "I didn't say I didn't want to be your friend. Geez, Kristina. I was just sayin'. I'm going home," the eleven-year-old huffed in annoyance, unlocking the chain around the neck of her bike and mounting it.  
  
Kristina shuffled her feet against the cracked concrete of the sidewalk, refusing to look up and let Rachel and the whole world see her crying. She gasped in surprise, mumbling a frantic apology, when she nearly knocked down an elderly lady she recognized from her infrequent trips to Rachel's church. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't paying attention where I was going, and.I'm sorry. I didn't mean to run into you," Kristina lowered her head as she felt a fresh onslaught of tears brewing. Her chin trembled as she felt the paper-thin texture of cool fingers lifting her chin, and tears made her brown eyes even brighter and more luminous as she met the kind blue eyes of the diminuative elderly woman in front of her.  
  
"You're the mysterious O'Leary child, aren't you? Don't cry, my Dear. You have such beautiful brown eyes. Eyes like yours should always be happy. Chin up," the old lady lifted Kristina's chin again when she stared down at her feet. "I haven't met your mother. You must get your eyes from her. I bet she isn't half as pretty as you though."  
  
"My mother's eyes are blue. Like the ocean my daddy says," Kristina whispered, "I'll never be as beautiful as her," she cried, pulling her chin from the woman's loose grasp and running back toward the diner.  
  
A crowd of people-a family-exited the diner in front of her, cutting off her path of escape.  
  
Kristina's brown eyes were drawn back to her reflection in the mirrored windows, and as she searched her face for evidence of her own mother, her own father, the image of her face started to blur and ripple like a reflection on water, and she cried out when she felt a strong hand grip her shoulder, whirling around in a panicked state.  
  
"Kristina? Are you sure you're okay? I got the food," Brad uttered softly, shifting the greasy white bags to his other arm so the arm nearest her should be free to hold her.  
  
Kristina pushed away the unwelcome feelings the forgotten memory recalled and snuggled into Brad's embrace. "I'm fine. Just take me home, okay?"  
  
Home, the whispers of the past mocked her. Did home really exist? Did YOU ever really exist, she heard her own childhood voice ask sadly. Where is my daddy in me? 


End file.
